EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER

Volume 3 Number 3 - Winter 1969

A BRITISH PINFOLD AND AN AMERICAN PINFOLD

Paul A. Doyle and Alan Clodd

In addition to the first British trade edition of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, a private, limited Author's Edition was issued and, thirdly, some Chapman and Hall proof copies are available, as well as, of course, the United States edition of the novel. Surprisingly, the differences between the first British edition and the American edition are considerable.

There are over two hundred variants in punctuation, capitalization, etc., which differentiate the American and British versions. Many of the changes involve hyphenated words; for example, mechanical-life, bulk-head, dressing-gown, etc. are common in the English edition. The many comma differences are primarily a matter of English and American usage and are not significantly important. Nevertheless, there are times when the English version appears superior while the American edition is less accurate, and the reverse is also true. Thus, the telegram punctuation in the British version: Love. Gilbert. (p.138) would appear more logical than the American printing which omits the first period: Love Gilbert. (p.176). On the other hand, the British direct address: Over to you B. (p. 149) is not as clear as the American: Over to you, B. (p.189). (The Author's Edition follows the English trade edition except on page 166 where it has the reading "flat doorway." There is also a difference on the title page of the Author's Edition, which has the word "by" in Gothic lettering on a line by itself above "EVELYN WAUGH" - the English trade edition omits "by." The catalogue number is also omitted from the verso of the title-leaf of the Author's Edition.)

The more important differences between the two first British and American editions involve the textual variants which are herewith listed. An asterisk * indicates that the American edition version is similar to that found in the Chapman and Hall proof copy:

Several of the American edition changes such as "barely a quarter" (rather than "barely quarter"); "had them to dine in return" (rather than "had entertained them in return"); "enormously" rich (rather than "extremely" rich) are definitely in conformity with American usage and would be more precise and readily understood by an audience in the United States. The tendency of the American edition to break up longer paragraphs also brings increased perspicuity and readability.

Numerous vulgarisms and racial slurs made by the unprincipled, foul-mouthed, and malevolent voices which torment Pinfold (Waugh) are omitted in the American version for two reasons. First of ail, for clarity: for instance, the allusion to a Wog hospital, while clear in England, would not be generally known to an American audience. Therefore the substitution of "Egyptian " for "Wog" makes the meaning obvious. Secondly, out of respect for American melting pot sensibilities, various racial epithets are omitted although, again, such admissions frequently bring about greater clarity. Thus, while a statement like "The Burmese will be locked in their cabins" (Amer. ed. p.135) is not as appropriate to the colloquial and prejudiced attitudes of the various hallucinatory speakers, it is much more intelligible than "The yellow-bellies will be locked in their cabins" (Brit. ed., p.105).

Yet, the long sentences involving the preparation for seducing Margaret which have been cut from the British edition in the interests of eliminating rather verbose and unimportant detail make this section of the English version preferable to the American. In other passages, the British reference to Dr. Drake being "there" at Lychpole (p.11) is more logical than the American "here" (p. 15). The British "decline of England, rural England" (p.79) is decidedly better than the American "decline of England, or rural England" (p.102).

On the other hand there are times when the American version appears more desirable; for example, Pinfold's "nodding to Glover and Mrs. Scarfield" (Amer. ed., p.187) seems more valid than "nodding to Glover or Mrs. Scarfield" (Brit. ed., p.148).

In summation, we have a situation in which there is a distinctly American version of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold as well as a distinctly British version. In some places, one version is superior; at other times the opposing edition is preferable. It became obvious then that some one at Little, Brown must have "Americanized" the British version and followed mainly the Chapman and Hall proof copy rather than the first English trade edition. Also it appears, as a consequence, that some of the author's revisions were not incorporated in the Little, Brown text. The "Americanization" of the Pinfold novel was confirmed when Larned Bradford, Waugh's editor at Little, Brown was contacted. Brown responded to our data by writing in part: ''as you assumed, a copy editor here substituted American phrases and idioms for British ones and made the text conform to American style generally - that is, she eliminated many of the hyphenations and so on. It was also necessary, of course, to substitute certain words for those which would have been unintelligible to on American reader - as, for instance, 'Egyptian' for 'Wog'." Incidentally, although Mr. Bradford does not so state, there are indications that some of Waugh's other novels have also been given American revisions.

A distinctly Waughian addition to the American text such as is found on page 10 was obviously sent by Evelyn to Little, Brown for special inclusion. Mr. Bradford informs us that Waugh "was inclined to change his mind about words and phrases and developed the habit of firing those over to us on postal cards," sometimes even after the Chapman and Hall as well as the Little, Brown editions of various novels had appeared in print.

As of this moment, the hardcover American edition of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is in its third printing. A comparison between the third printing and the first American edition demonstrates that no changes have been mode in the U.S. issues. At present there is no American paperback edition of Pinfold.

The British hardcover edition of Pinfold is still in its first edition. The Penguin paperback volume (1962), however, shows that Waugh has made some additional changes in the text. Not one of these improvements and more recent corrections can be found in any of the American printings. These final alterations, intended to give greater conciseness and succinctness to the style and meaning, are as follows:

There are many further differences in punctuation and allied areas between the British hardcover edition and the Penguin paperback. These differences would appear to be the result of copyeditors' work. In several instances the Penguin punctuation is preferable; in other instances the punctuation of the hardcover edition is superior. The American printings follow on some occasions the hardcover punctuation, but at other times they are similar to the Penguin version obviously another result of the particular copyeditor's preference. Inconsistency abounds e.g., in the British hardcover edition we find "1920's and '30s … '40s and '50s" (p.7) while in the Penguin version the dates are written out (p.13). In the hardcover edition on page 8 we find "'30s" while the Penguin writes out the date (p.14). But in the American editions the typography follows the hardcover farm of the dates on page 7, but then agrees with the Penguin arrangement on page 14.

Overall, the fact of the several Pinfolds adds more intriguing data to the several paradoxes and unusual facets which surround so many phases of Waugh's work.

WAUGH'S LETTERS TO THE TIMES: 1936-1964

Winnifred M. Bogaards (University of Saskatchewan)

This bibliography constitutes, so far as I can judge, a complete list of Waugh's letters to The Times. I have given the relevant bibliographical information whenever Waugh wrote in reply to a previous correspondent in order to save others the trouble of searching back issues for the source of controversy.

"The Conquest of Abyssinia" (letter to editor in reply to article, "The Emperor Withdraws," Times, May 4, 1936, 15), Times, May 19, 1936, 12.

"Italian Reprisals in Addis Ababa" (letter to editor in reply to letter from Guy Stanford, "Italian Reprisals in Addis Ababa," Times, March 10, 1937, 15), Times, March 12, 1937, 17.

"B.B.C. Bulletins," Times, February 20, 1939, 8.

"Victorian Taste," Times, March 3, 1942, 5.

"Picasso and Matisse" (letter to editor in reply to letters from R.O. Dunlop and D. Saurat, "Picasso and Matisse," Times, December 18, 1945, 5), Times, December 20, 1945, 5.

"Foreign Travel For Young Writers," Times, April 17, 1947, 5.

"A Visit To America," Times, November 6, 1947, 5.

"Christian Prayer" (letter to editor in reply to letter from Bishop of Truro, "Christian Prayer," Times, May 18,1948, 5), Times, May 21, 1948, 5.

"Christian Prayer" (letter to editor in reply to letter from Quintin Hogg, "Christian Prayer, " Times May 22, 1948, 5), Times, May 25, 1948, 5.

"The South Bank At Night" ( letter to editor with Christopher Sykes and Douglas Woodruff), Times, May 24, 1951, 5.

"Tax on Dollar Earnings," Times, February 6, 1952, 5.

"Taxation of Authors," Times, May 24, 1952, 7.

"President Tito's Visit," Times, March 24, 1953, 9.

"Conditions In Goa," Times, March 24, 1954, 9.

"Painter and Patron: Responsibilities to One Another," Times, July 17, 1954, 7.

"A Star For Silence," Times, April 28, 1955, 13.

"Statues in London," Times, July 20, 1955, 9.

"Matisse Reliefs," Times, June 20, 1956, 11.

"An Unposted Letter," Times, June 17, 1959, 11.

"Social Distinctions," Times, September 19, 1959, 7.

"A Bishop's Rebuke," Times, July 5, 1960, 13.

"Indexes," Times, October 16, 1961, 13.

"Using English in the Latin Mass" (letter to editor in reply to letter from Edward Hutton, "Using English in the Latin Mass," Times, August 6, 1964, 9), Times, August 8, 1964, 7.

BOOK REVIEW

Paul A. Doyle, Evelyn Waugh, Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective Series, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 255 Jefferson S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49502, 1969, 95 cents. Review by Charles E. Linck, Jr. (East Texas State University).

Evelyn Waugh by Mr. Doyle is properly a "philosophical-theological exponential" study, its being in the Eerdmans Christian Perspective series. One cannot object to a thesis study in such a series, and Mr. Doyle's is pursued throughout the canon of Waugh's works very perceptively. A Christian Tragi-Comic view pervades the total didactic condemnation of our materialistic world's foibles, which Graham Greene once called "soft-headed Liberalism. " I do not object to thus standardizing the whole series of Waugh's novels (only one, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, is ignored).

But a question arises unsuppressed: if it is so easy to see that there was a consistent tragic-comic view in every Waugh novel, why hove so many good readers and critics failed to see it through the years as it appeared in each one of its reappearances? The thesis solves all of the problems; it is easily demonstrated to be there; it is facile, not difficult, and therefore available to all readers from the start. What is the problem the reviewers and critics and readers have had for so long? One wonders if the present thesis is being forced, the uniformity is being imposed, the reading deduced post hoc? But, if the question is mine, I suspect I also have the answer, which cum grano salis is proffered here. Most of my friends who have enjoyed Waugh's novels have been self-styled humanist intellectuals and have thought of themselves as "Liberals." They have noted Waugh's comic criticism of foibles and have enjoyed the condemnation of deficiencies they themselves condemn by virtue of being humanist intellectuals. (Unknown to themselves they were and are more nearly reactionary conservatives, as are most humanist intellectuals; it is significant that they only suppose they are "Liberals.") They have the profound sense of wrongs in this world; they enjoy Waugh's condemnation with various humors of the things they themselves condemn. Their actual base of principle coincides with Waugh's despite their suppositions that they are "Liberal." Most of my friends are, of course, school teachers, a group that traditionally condemns social illness as seen with humanist spectacles.

So Mr. Doyle's thesis that Waugh's success lies in his tragi-comic view of the world is plausible. He contends that Waugh's success relies on a 50-50 percentage each of balanced humor and balanced condemnation; if the technique fails the novel fails from imbalances, a 60-40 or 40-60 imbalance unsettling the effects that buffs like. And it is apt that the ordinary humanist intellectual "Liberal" would so react, accepting the proper mixture favorable and rejecting the other as either farcical or doctrinaire, as Mr. Doyle demonstrates it.

The first section of this essay sets the thesis: Decline and Fall is filled with the "materialism, hypocrisy, treachery, and degeneracy as dominant features of contemporary life " which is good humoredly treated so that "even though the subject matter suggests a sermonistic or denunciatory reaction, a reader actually laughs uproariously throughout the novel." This is the proper reaction for my humanist intellectuals; they would not demand that he actually "preach the opposite of the behavior on view" because they are also "Liberals." They would not call it comic relief merely, perhaps because it provides comic catharsis. The few critics who "interpret his personal position as neutral if not outright amoral" are also usually "fooled or disturbed or sometimes pleased."

The second section is biographical, to demonstrate that Waugh was not really neutral or amoral. This section satisfies my contention that those who like Waugh are really reactionary conservatives, who harmonize unknowingly on Waugh's own traditionally doctrinaired principles of theology and right reason.

Following sections on "The Tragicomedy of Existence" in two phases, from Vile Bodies through Put Out More Flags and from Brideshead Revisited through Helena respectively, indicate the already generally accepted success of the 50-50 percentage and the similarly established lack in the unbalanced books was correct. Vile Bodies was just the right combination, though "grimness and sardonic tone" crept in. Black Mischief leaned a bit too much to farce about matters sacred to "liberals" perhaps. A Handful of Dust indicated artistic growth into three-dimensional characterization (Mr. Doyle is quite good here) and it came dangerously near to over seriousness, but it too was a good balance. Scoop was a little too farcical about matters sacred to Power blocs. Then Put Out More Flags was unbalanced on the tragic side, for England's demise is not funny. Then, in Phase Two, Brideshead seems to have been marvelously well balanced for Mr. Doyle though not for those many who are "Liberals" - Mr. Wilson and Mr. Greene reacting oppositely, one rejecting the sectarian orthodoxy of obvious Roman Catholic partisanship; the other favorably reading into it the Augustinian puritanism of his own "grim grin" (stolen from James Lee).

Actually, to follow up my own conjecturing, no mere humanist intellectual and self-supposed "Liberal" could have liked Brideshead; it takes another sort of humanist, what was more aptly named in my own college the "supernaturalist," to find Brideshead, as Mr. Doyle does (and I too) filled with the "particular quality of tragicomic fun (which is) one of the glories" it has. There is really no way out; one is a reactionary conservative with a supernaturalist addition if one likes Brideshead; one is no longer simply a humanist intellectual who thinks his attitude is "Liberal." It is all very disconcerting.

To get back to Mr. Doyle's essay, The Loved One was a perfect balance and we all loved it. But Helena was much too serious altogether, too much a "religious" novel for any "Liberal," excepting perhaps, all the diocesan newspaper reviewers and my old mentor at St. Benedict's, Fr. Gervase of beloved memory, who thought it was possible that Waugh would become a really great novelist from Helena on.

Then in the last section Mr. Doyle finds the Sword of Honor trilogy to be "Waugh's most monumental expression of his special ability to seize upon the ludicrous in all situations, to blend the tragic and the comic in his own reverently irreverent manner." I have never been so inclined myself though Anthony Newnham is, too, but I can see how this does wind up the thesis properly. Better, I think, is the summary remark that the whole canon of Waugh's haphazard series of novels is actually a "novel sequence" superior to the Identified sequences of Anthony Powell and C. P. Snow. Once I thought to demonstrate that Brideshead was the epic poem of Waugh's era and generation, so I like "sequence" notion.

There are other thought provoking and good things here, for Mr. Doyle does write this up very pleasingly, and I shall not do him further injustices by airing my provoked thoughts. Readers should not be so prevented from finding out what Mr. Doyle has written; it is a good essay. But, yet, like Evelyn Waugh the Book Reviewer, I want to add another personal item about the nature of the "essai" since Montaigne. The modern book publisher does not like footnotes; as a novice I found this particular feature of Mr. Stopp's book on Waugh to be particularly maddening. Mr. Doyle and I receive numerous letters from novice students who cannot find the source for undocumented source matters - sometime, somehow, publishers are going to begin again to include footnotes. There is a bibliography here, and I think I have clues to where most of the citations are found, some rather flattering. Several items apparently come from some personal treasure trove, however; the desire to know more of that trove is, quite frankly, once again maddening. I wonder if EWN could print the footnotes as an addenda to the essay sometime?

Finally, for the fun of it, since I have rather contradicted myself in the above conjecturing, may I suggest another thesis for someone else to try? A great many of the incidents in Waugh's novels are, as noted, actual, historical, biographical, factual, from life and current events. Many of Waugh's novel events are very personal; often they came from pique. Waugh was a pretty good hater. If people intruded on his self-esteem, or that of his friends, it often appeared in fictional forms with definite meanness. I wonder if more of his old acquaintances and friends might not write memoirs one day and point this out clearly with footnotes? Such topical information and a clef data is needed for my present thesis. Could someone entice Diana Cooper and Nancy Mitford, for instance, to furnish us with really intimate, gossipy, juicy personalities?

ANNOUNCEMENT

Subscription Fee Increase: We have found that continually rising costs, especially in postage and mailing fees and in offset printing necessitate a substantial price Increase beginning in 1970, We genuinely regret this step, but for three years we have held the line at the $1.00 a year subscription rate while other newsletters, some devoted to writers of less literary stature than Waugh have charged prices ranging from $2.00 to $5.00 a year. Some even require a society membership running as high as $25 a year.

Commencing with the Spring 1970 issue our subscription rote will be $2.50 a year, 22 shillings in England. Please note: Those who hove already paid $1.00 for subscriptions for 1970, 1971, etc. will continue to receive EWN at the original price until their $1.00 subscriptions end. We urge individual subscribers who cannot afford the new fee to place orders for EWN with their local public, college, or university libraries and read future issues in the library most accessible to them.

BRIEF NOTES

The Rev. Gene D. Phillips, S. J. is writing his doctorate dissertation on "Christian Elements in the Later Fiction of Waugh" (i.e. from Brideshead onward). He would like to hear from anyone with pertinent information on this topic and would like to examine letters, documents, etc., which might help his research in this subject area. His address is St. Loyola Residence, 53 East Eighty-Third Street, New York, N.Y. 10028.

In future issues we will epitomize Evelyn's letters to his brother, Alec which are now located in the Boston University Library, Division of Special Collections. Also completed and awaiting publication are an article on Arthur Waugh and a comparison between the first and the revised editions of A Handful of Dust.

Professor Robert Murray Davis has published an anthology of Christian criticism of Evelyn Waugh's writings (B. Herder Co., St. Louis, $1.25). Our review of this book, scheduled for this issue, has not been received. We hope it will be ready for appearance in the Spring 1970 EWN.

The Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, designed to stimulate research and continue interest in the life and writings of Evelyn Waugh, is published three times a year in April, October, and December (Spring, Autumn, and Winter numbers). Subscription rate for libraries and interested individuals: $1.00 a year (10 shillings in England). Back issues 50 cents each. Checks or money orders should be made payable to the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter. Notes, brief essays, and news items about Waugh and his work may be submitted, but manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to Dr. Paul A. Doyle, c/o English Department, Nassau Community College, State University of New York, Garden City, New York 11530.